Rod turned to stare at his son. How had Magnus worked it around so he and his father were on opposite sides? "I'm the one who seems to remember the concept of individual rights. Or do you think Gramarye's right to rule should wipe out the rest of humanity's right to self-determination?"
"Nay." Magnus frowned, wondering in his turn how his father had turned the argument back on him. "Yet by seeking to foster democracy among us, thou dost impose thy will. The folk of Gramarye should be free to choose what form of government they may."
"True. Do you honestly think those people back there would really choose anything other than an effective democracy?"
Magnus turned thoughtful, running over possibilities. "It may be," he said slowly. "The history books Fess gave me to read told of a case or two of folk wishing to be ruled by another."
"Biblical Israel shifting from judges to monarchy." Rod nodded. "Any of the other cases, though, are just stagedressing for a power grab-like the Roman proletariat offering a crown to Julius Caesar."
"Naetheless, thou wilt not deny 'tis possible!"
Rod shrugged. "Anything is possible. That doesn't mean it's good. I'm just naturally wary of any form of government that doesn't guarantee the basic human rights."
"I could subscribe to that," Magnus said slowly.
"Then you'll find you're supporting a democracy of some kind, son, though it may work differently from the ones you've studied. Asserting the rights of the individual always leads to self-government of one sort or another."
"I can think of other forms."
"Yeah, but will they really be democracies hiding under another name? If they're not, are they really enforcing human rights, or just claiming to? Either way, you also have to ask how they're affecting their neighbors. You may have a local tyranny that's really part of a larger democracy, and it's the bigger government that's really guaranteeing those rights."
Magnus thought that over, frowning. "Dost thou say no government, no society, can exist in isolation from others?"
"Well, it's possible," Rod admitted, "though interstellar travel and FTL communication have made sure that even the separate planets are affecting each other all the time, and very deeply, though that isn't always apparent. If it can happen anywhere, son, it'll be right here in the Forest Gellorn." Magnus looked up in surprise. "Why, how dost thou mean? Even that little village has a lord!"
"Yes, but it was right near the edge of the wildwood. As we go deeper in, I think we'll find villages set up by escaped peasants, outlaws, malcontents-or even just people who became lost. There'll be some traffic between them, but not a lot--this is a very big, thick forest, with lots of wild animals. . . ."
"Some of which may be quite strange," Magnus grunted, "due to witch-moss, and the projective esper who knoweth not what she-or he-may be."
"Or what effects he's having. But isn't that true of all of us? Anyway," Rod rushed on, "if there's any place on Gramarye where a pocket society can exist free of outside government, it'll be here. Shall we take a little detour to see what kinds of government we may find?"
"This whole excursion is a detour," Magnus pointed out, "and one government that the people welcome, but is not a democracy, will be enough to prove my case."
"So my holiday from marital obligations and daily routine becomes a quest. Why not? But for now, I'm tired, and we're far enough from that village so that I don't think they'll find us. Let's pitch camp, son. I could use some sleep."
They slept the clock around, woke at dawn, and broke their fasts. Feeling largely restored, they broke camp, drowned and buried the fire, and rode off into the morning. A few hours later they heard a bell tolling.
Rod frowned. "Kind of jarring, considering what a bright and peaceful morning it is."
"And somewhat late for Mass," Magnus agreed. "Of course, 'tis naught of our affair."
"Exactly. So we're going to go look, right?"
"Certes." Magnus smiled. "For what else have we come?" They rode down the path that led through the trees, since it seemed to be going in the right direction. Sure enough, the bell's tones became louder-then the forest ended abruptly, and they came out into a large cleared area, a square mile or so of land so flat they could see the thin dark line of trees on the other side. Strips of farmland lay all about in a crazyquilt pattern, divided by hedges. People had hewn themselves farms out of the midst of the forest.
A hill rose at the eastern side of the clearing, and a village of wattle-and-daub houses clustered around it. Up near the top stood a fieldstone church-square and blocky, but with a recognizable steeple-and all about it, the grass was dotted with tombstones.
But the procession that threaded its way through the fields wasn't winding up toward that churchyard-it was coming toward Rod and Magnus, and a newly dug grave a hundred yards off to their left. The mourners didn't seem to see them-for mourners they were, peasant folk dressed in dark clothing, the first six bearing a coffin on their shoulders, following a man in a black robe, wearing a bishop's mitre-a high, bulbous, pointed hat-and carrying a crozier, the ornate shepherd's crook. But he wasn't wearing a priest's chasuble, or even a cassock--only a long robe, like a memory of a baron's leisure clothing. Certainly the huge cross that adorned a priest's chasuble was missing.
Magnus scowled. "Why, how is this? There is only the Abbot of the Monastery in Gramarye, and the new abbot of the Runnymede chapter of the Order."
"Apparently neither of them has heard about his rival here," Rod noted. "Of course, you can't be a bishop if you don't have a priest or two under you-but he seems to have taken care of that."
Behind the bishop came three acolytes in black robes with short white tunics over them-again, like distorted echoes of the garb of Catholic altar boys. One was a teenager, his face set and solemn; the other two were younger, perhaps eight and twelve, both looking rather scared. Behind them strode a priest, very young, also wearing a black robe, with two black-cloaked women behind him, their hair hidden under white bonnets. If they hadn't been with the clergy, Rod would have taken them for peasant wives-but their presence behind the priest made him wonder.
Then came the pallbearers, and the coffin; and behind it strode a short, stocky peasant, his square face lined with grief, his grizzled hair, his smock and leggings the color of old barn wood. Behind him came a few dozen people, young and old, parents and children, all but the babes in arms chanting a slow and mournful dirge.
They came to the grave; the bishop turned and gestured, and the pallbearers lowered the coffin to the rope slings, then down into the grave. At another gesture, the congregation ceased its chant.
"He lies here in sin!" the bishop cried. "In the one sin that cannot be shriven, for when a young man dies by his own hand, he condemns himself to hellfire eternal! When the spirit leaves the body, 'tis too late for remorse; the dead cannot confess! We may only hope and pray that ere the light of consciousness faded, he knew the wrong he had done, and repented of it-for even in the moment of our death, God can forgive!"
"Praise be to God," the priest and-were they nuns?murmured.
"Yet we must knock upon the door if it is to be opened to us!" the bishop cried. "We must confess if we are to be forgiven! Ranulf did not!"
"This isn't going to be a whole great help to his family," Rod growled.
"He must say what is true," Magnus murmured. "Only if he's asked."
"He must warn the others of his flock away from the road to Hell."
"Now is neither the time nor the place. Is he doing this for their good, or to buttress his own power?"
Magnus turned to him, frowning. "Why, how would this increase his power?"
"They have to do what he tells them to," Rod explained, "or they rot in Hell."
"Ranulf died alone," the bishop orated, "without a priest nearby! Let us pray that God will have mercy upon his soul-but since we cannot know that, we must believe he died in mortal sin, and cannot therefore be buried in consecrated ground. He will lie here, hard by the wilderness that was in his soul."